One of my favorite rituals of the year is my ritual of review. I reserve the time between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve as a time of reflection on the year past. (I share this ritual through my 12 Days of Christmas class and also a book I’ve put together that contains the ideas below and much more.)

I go over my records of the past year (my journals, my planners, the photos I’ve taken, my financial records) to get a sense of the year. My journals contain dreams, writing logs, kvetches, reviews of books read, and new ideas, all neatly indexed at the back of each notebook, so this is not as onerous a task it might be. I developed this indexing system to make this process easier. I make top ten lists, print financial reports, look for an image or title that describes the year (I’m currently playing around with the idea that it has been the Year of Hiding).

I know other people use different systems for conducting a year-end review. Chris Guillebeau uses metrics and a spreadsheet. (I love his system!). Mark Silver of Heart of Business shares his version of a year-end review focused on small business owners and entrepreneurs. Facebook always likes to send you a summary of your year. And then there’s the every-popular (but oh so sadly dwindling) tradition of the Christmas letter.

I like to end up with something concrete, something that can symbolize the year. One year I invited all of my friends to a creativity party and asked them to bring something that symbolized the year past. People brought poems and collages, paintings and sculptures; one woman did an interpretive dance! It was pretty amazing and entertaining.

In 2009, I found a software program that helped me create a gorgeous little book that’s like a love letter to my year. And every year since I’ve enjoyed the process of creating one for the year that is sliding away.

The software is called BookSmart and I found it at a web site called Blurb. You download the software to your computer and use it to create your book. It does have a learning curve; it’s not terribly user friendly but it is intuitive. Basically you get your choice of different templates and you can pull your photos and text into them. It reminds me a little of the old design program (Pagemaker?) we used to use to create The Beltane Papers. You choose templates (you can use a different one for every page) from the top left of the screen. You can also upload your pictures to a bar on the left and then just drag them into the screen.

This screen shot shows two sample pages from last year’s book. (if you click on it, you can see a larger version.) At the bottom of the screen shot you can see the thumbnails of other pages in the book. That yellow triangle with the exclamation point is trying to tell me one of my pictures isn’t of high enough resolution to reproduce well. I just ignored it because this wasn’t for professional purposes, just for my own entertainment.

Of course, you could create your own book using a design program that you know well and then turn it into a PDF and then send it to a print-on-demand company like Lulu. I used them happily to publish my Slow Time book. But the advantage with BookSmart is that they’ve come up with a design template that is ideal for arty little books. The disadvantage is that they’re a little more pricey (per book) than other print-on-demand companies but since I’m only using them to make one precious, glossy, pretty copy for me, that doesn’t bother me. There are also options that allow you to share your book with your friends online, for instance, via Facebook.

I hope whatever rituals you employ to reflect upon and summarize your year are satisfying.

Waverly Fitzgerald is a writer, teacher and dancer. She founded School of the Seasons, edits Living in Season and is the author of Slow Time: Recovering the Natural Rhythm of Life.

Gertrud Mueller Nelson in To Dance with God talks about how people in the far north removed wheels from their carts during the depth of winter. They brought these wheels into their homes and decorated them with evergreens and candles. This, Nelson says, is the possible origin of the Advent wreath. Although a charming story, I suspect it was invented after the fact to explain the circular shape of the Advent wreath.

An Advent wreath is a circle of evergreens with places for four candles. When I was growing up, our Advent wreath had three violet candles for penance and one rose-colored one (lit on the third week, which is called Gaudete (Rejoice) Sunday) to symbolize the coming joy. Nelson says her family uses the traditional red candles and red ribbon to decorate their wreath.

Helen Farias in The Advent Sunwheel, her book of suggestions for pagans wanting to celebrate Advent (which can be ordered at my website), points out that the Advent wreath, made of greens in a circle shape and lit by candles is a potent symbol. The circle with the dot inside has long been a symbol for the sun and is still used that way in astrology. Helen suggests putting a fifth candle in the center of the Advent wreath, to be lit on the solstice, to make the symbolism more apparent.

I make my Advent wreath on Wreath-Making Day, the Saturday before the first Sunday in Advent, by going on a walk through my neighborhood, collecting evergreen boughs. Often there’s a big windstorm around this time which knocks off branches so I don’t have to cut them. When I do cut branches, since I will be using them with a spiritual intent, I always ask permission of the tree and leave an offering (usually cornmeal) at the base of the tree.

Many years ago I bought a circular styrofoam wreath form which is the base for my Advent wreath. I hollowed out cavities just the width of standard candles and I cover the styrofoam with tin foil and then with evergreens, usually bound to the form with wire, ribbon or ivy. I like to use candles in the colors of the four directions: yellow for east, red for south, blue for west and green for north.

There is another kind of wreath which is found in Germany and Scandinavia, made of apples and dowels (chopsticks would work too). Three apples with dowels connecting them in a triangle form the base and the fourth apple is suspended by dowels above the rest, forming a pyramid. The triangle and pyramid are also both sun symbols.

This is an excerpt from the Yule holiday e-book which contains much more information about winter holidays, including folklore, recipes, instructions for making luminarias and pomanders and Yule songs. To order go to the Living in Season store.

When the last fall grain harvest was gathered in, ancient farmers in Europe (from England to the Baltics) always kept a few sheaves aside to be woven into “corn dollies,” shapes and figures thought to manifest the spirit of grain. Called the corn mother in Northern Europe, the hag in Ireland, and the corn maiden in parts of England, the spirit inhabited the fertile fields, and once the grain was harvested, needed a place to dwell until replanting time in the spring. Those final sheaves kept her spirit alive through the fallow winter.

Despite their name (corn evolved from ‘kern,’ the old English word for grain, and “dolly” is thought to have evolved from “idol”), corn dollies weren’t made of corn and didn’t always resemble the human form. More often, they were interpreted as circles, hearts, loops, goats, and stars that could be displayed in the home during the dormant winter, then plowed back into the earth in spring. When modern mechanical threshers came into use, the art of making corn dollies was almost lost. But in the past few decades, it has experienced a revival, usually under the name of wheat weavings,

Waverly published an article about wheat weaving in this magazine last year. You can also interpret the spirit of the grain in your own way. We chose to make ours look a bit like a proud, wild goddess with a head and hands of seedheads and a corn husk dress. This style is easy to make with older children, although an adult should be present for wire cutting.

Start with a four-ounce bundle of wheat and cut the seedheads off, leaving a little of the stalk intact for a base. Separate the taller seedheads from the shorter ones, then make two piles of short ones for the hands and one pile of big ones for the head. Wire the seedheads into bundles with 22 to 24-gauge wire.

Soak the long stalks for a few hours so that they’re pliable, then cut two piles of stalks: one for the body and one for the arms. Bind off each pile at each end, then wire the ‘hands’ to the end of the arms, the ‘head’ to the top of the body, and the arms to the body. Hide the wire under raffia. Cut a piece of paper and secure into a cone shape. Anchor body in the cone either by poking wire through the paper and wrapping it around the body stalk or any other method that works for you. Now you can make the dress. We used corn husks and pinned them to the paper cone. This is just one simple way to make a corn dolly without being skilled at wheat weaving. Even without those skills, my daughter and I felt like we were taking part in an ancient tradition as we made our dolly.

Joanne O’Sullivan writes about art, culture, and traveling with kids from her home in Asheville, North Carolina. She can be reached through her blog, the Wanderlists.

Photo taken by Jo Sullivan: a corn dolly in front of a chocolate cosmos. First published August 29, 2010.

Many years ago I was in Aberystwyth in Wales on Lammas. I hadn’t planned any special activity for this, my favorite seasonal holiday, but I had gleaned some wheat stalks a few weeks earlier from a field near Rose Cottage (the home of my favorite novelist, Elizabeth Goudge, who lived outside Henley-on-Thames).

That primitive wheat weaving came back across the ocean to Seattle and for over a year sat above my stove, my very own harvest spirit, blessing the food I prepared and ate, while reminding me of my pilgrimages in the British Isles.

I didn’t have any instructions for wheat-weaving with me. All I remembered was that I had to soak the wheat, which I did in a bathtub, releasing that wonderful nutty aroma from the stalks. Then I wove it into a simple plait which I tied in a loop with a strand of orange yarn. That primitive wheat weaving came back across the ocean to Seattle and for over a year sat above my stove, my very own harvest spirit, blessing the food I prepared and ate, while reminding me of my pilgrimages in the British Isles.

In earlier times in England, the last sheaf of wheat was cut down with special pomp and ceremony and carried into the house where it was displayed throughout the winter, being returned to the soil when the fields were ploughed in spring. Sometimes the spirit of the grain was invited to inhabit weavings made of wheat stalks interlaced in intricate patterns. These were often called corn dollies, corn being a word for grain and dolly describing the shape.

To make your own wheat weavings, you must first obtain wheat, either from a craft supply store or a field (I have friends who grow a small patch in their garden for harvesting at Lammas and using in wheat-weaving and bread-baking). The excursion to get the wheat could become a part of your holiday rituals. I will never forget my first sight of wheat fields, driving one Fourth of July weekend with my daughter through the wheat country of eastern Washington. For miles and miles as far as the eye could see, for hours we drove among the silent rolling hills of golden wheat.

Maggie Oster in Gifts and Crafts from Your Garden says that wheat for wheat-weaving should be harvested about two weeks before the regular harvest when it is in the “dough stage.” Test it by pinching one of the grains with your thumbnail. If it releases a milky say, it is too green. If it is hard, it is too ripe. It should puncture easily but no sap should appear. Cut the wheat about four or six inches above the soil and bundle in sheaves about four to six inches in diameter. Keeping all the heads of wheat in one direction, bind near the bottom of the stalk and either hang them up or stack them for two weeks.

Wheat weavings were often hung on walls, not just as decorations but as protection, like the charms made in the Scottish Highlands on Lammas by tying red strings around crossed rowan-twigs and hanging them over doors.

Wheat weavings were often hung on walls, not just as decorations but as protection, like the charms made in the Scottish Highlands on Lammas by tying red strings around crossed rowan-twigs and hanging them over doors. In Wales, wheat weaving has become a traditional art form, divorced from harvest customs. Everywhere I went in Wales, I saw beautiful and elaborate wheat weavings for sale. You may be able to find someone in your area who can teach you this traditional art. Like many women’s arts, it’s hard to describe on paper–it cries out for one-to-one instruction and a kinesthetic experience.

Prepare the wheat by cutting off and discarding the second-joint straw and removing the leaf-sheaf. Soak them in warm water for at least 30 minutes. Then drain and wrap in a damp towel so they will stay moist.

Witch’s Mark or Cat’s Paw

The first set of instructions come from Helen Farias’ unpublished book, The Harvest Mysteries. This creates a long flat braid.

Tie three straws together, just below the heads with stout thread (Helen suggests buttonhole twist). Fan them out into north, east and west positions with the heads to the south. Fold the east (right) straw under the north (top) straw just before you fold the north straw over the east straw–in other words, they trade places. Then fold the west (left) straw under the north straw, just before folding the north straw over the west straw–again they trade places. Repeat.

As you work, you may wish to stretch the braid slightly. With your left thumb and forefinger (if you are right-handed) firmly hold the weaving, and move your grip up the weaving as it grows. Stop a few inches from the end and tie off.

Four Straw Plait or North, South, East, West Plait

This creates a plait with a bit more dimension. Tie four straws together under the heads. Hold the heads down (towards the floor) with your left thumb and forefinger, keeping your palm upward. Fan the four straws out in the four directions.

With your right hand (if you’re right-handed), fold the south straw to the north and the north to the south. Put your thumb across the fold. Fold the east straw to the west and the west straw to the east. Secure with your thumb. Repeat, moving your grip slowly upwards as the weaving grows, stretching it when necessary, holding it securely with your thumb. Stop a few inches from the end and tie off.

Shaping the Weaving

These braids can now be twisted into various shapes.

The simplest is a simple loop. Tie the end to the to the neck of the heads and either fan the straw ends out, snipping them at an angle, or hide them behind the heads.

Or loop the braid twice and overlap the loop, creating a vesica pisces or almond shape in the center.

Or make three concentric loops for a miniature “dolly” (with the loops as the head, the sheaves as the skirted body).

Secure the ends again, straighten the weaving and pat it until it is even and pleasing. Mist it once or twice, if it’s dried out, and place under a brick, heavy book (protected with plastic) or some other flat weight. When it has dried, decorate as you like. The traditional decoration is a red ribbon.

Mordiford Wheat Weaving

If you are now ready for a more complicated wheat weaving, try this heart-shaped “corn dolly” associated with the Mordiford district in England. I found directions for it and a picture at www.wheatweaving.com.

At this web site, you can take a virtual tour of woven straw art. It’s just like walking through a museum. Great photos and informative captions. I came away with a new appreciation of the marvelous capabilities of woven grain and the spiritual dimensions of this art.

Until I bought a copy of Elizabeth Jane Lloyd’s, The Enchanted Circle, I did not think I had the ability to create a wreath. All my attempts were pitiful things, limp and disheveled with bits and pieces sticking out here and there. Looking at the photographs of the gorgeous wreaths Lloyd created I was inspired. Reading her directions on how to create a wreath, I recognized that it was a craft, like baking, which is best done when following directions. Although I know people who can bake a cake from scratch without a recipe, I am not one of them.

I failed to realize, in my early attempts, that a wreath needs a firm base. The base serves as the framework for the decorative material. You then match the delicacy of the materials to the appropriate base. There are many materials you can use for a wreath base but here are the three most common:

Wire
You can make a wire wreath by bending an old coat hanger into a circle, which has the benefit of providing a hook at the top. You can also use various strengths of wire you buy at a hardware store. Two circles of wire joined can provide a strong framework for heavy materials, like evergreens. Very thin florist’s wire should be used for a more ethereal wreath, for instance, for making a chaplet of orange blossoms. To hide the wire base, you might want to wrap the wire with ribbon or florist’s tape. The one disadvantage of a wire wreath is that you cannot throw it on the Summer Solstice bonfire because of the wire it contains.

When working with a wire base you will probably be adding materials in clusters. You can gather a group of flowers, or pieces of greenery, and place them against the wire frame, then use a thin, supple florist’s wire to hold them in place. Don’t cut the wire, but overlap the join with another cluster of flowers or greens, and continue wrapping your way around the frame.

In some wreaths, materials are arranged in a continuous circle, with all the clusters facing the same direction. To finish this sort of wreath you just need to tuck the join of the end cluster under the first cluster. In other wreaths, you might work down both sides to have the clusters meet at the bottom. With this arrangement, you will end up with a bare spot which you can cover with a ribbon or a rosette of your materials.

Wire wreaths, because they are usually delicate, tend to be used for light materials, like feathers or ivy or snowdrops. You can use a sturdy piece of wire and thread it directly through chilis (leaving them lengthwise) or apples to create interesting wreaths.

Vine
I love using vines for a wreath base since it makes the wreath totally organic. Honeysuckle, wisteria, willow and grapevine are the usual vines used for wreaths. If you can find fresh materials, twine them into a circle and let them dry. If you’ve purchased or been given vines that aren’t fresh, soak them in water until they’re pliable and can be shaped.

When working with a vine base, you can often tuck the flowers and leaves into the many nooks and crannies in the wreath, without using wire or tape. If you want to use a fastening device, but be able to keep the wreath organic, use raffia or string. For a truly organic binding device, I use bindweed (morning glory). When picked fresh, it retains that elastic, spiraling quality that makes it such a menace in the garden. Jane Lake (who has a great article on how to create a vine wreath) uses another common weed local to her area: Virginia Creeper.

Janet Lloyd uses vine bases for wreaths featuring hops, lime twigs and leaves, rose hips, berries, jasmine, roses and freesias. I tuck freshly picked hydrangea blossoms into my vine base, then add more to fluff it up as the first blossoms dry and shrivel in size.

Straw
Straw makes a sturdier but heavier base. You can buy straw wreaths at most craft stores or make one yourself by wrapping straw in a circular form and binding it with string or straw. The advantage of a straw base is that you can spike things into the straw, either using florist’s picks (sort of like bobby pins for flowers) or the stems of your plant materials. You can also use a glue gun to affix items but then your wreath will be permanent, whereas the other items can be removed when you want to change your wreath.

Lloyd uses straw bases for wreaths featuring dried flax and sandalwood flowers, dried herbs and flowers, dried poppy heads and bunches of wheat, oats and barley. Straw serves as an appropriate backdrop in both color and feel for these items. Lloyd also shows a very dramatic and effective wreath made by gathering several strands of straw into three thick strands and plaiting these into one thick braided wreath.

It is, of course, possible to make a wreath completely out of natural materials (think daisy chain) but these tend to have the same floppy nature as a daisy chain. Lloyd also shows examples of wreaths made by gluing dried flowers or seashells on a cardboard base; plaiting the stems of onions or garlic into a circle, and placing live plants in a circle of sphagnum moss.

I challenge myself to make wreaths for each seasonal holiday using only items I can find within a few blocks of my home. This keeps me aware of all the changes in vegetation in my neighborhood, constantly scanning for the materials for my next wreath.

In Wales, the Maypole was usually a birch, cut down in the forest, carried into town and planted in a hole dug into the village green. Friends who’ve attended the May Day ceremony at the former Chinook Learning Center tell me that the men brought in the tree while the women prepared the hole in which it was planted, the two groups working together with bantering and joking about the sexual innuendos of their actions as the tree was erected and settled into the hole.

I’ve also attended the May Day celebrations of the Radical Faeries here in Seattle. Unfortunately the May Pole is already set up by the time we process through Ravenna Ravine, leaving offerings for various deities, so I don’t know how the pole is secured in the hole. It’s important to make sure the Maypole is stable, as dancing around it, pulling on the ribbons, can sway it.

The one year we did a Maypole dance in our backyard, we tried to use a stanchion from a tetherball game to hold the pole but it wasn’t stable enough and one of us had to kneel at the base of the Maypole, steadying it while the others danced around it.

My friend, Maevyn, came up with an artful way of using and re-using her Christmas tree which creates a small, indoor Maypole. She cuts all the branches off her tree after Yule (they would be great for mulch in the garden) but leaves the trunk in the Christmas tree holder. Then on May Day, she attaches ribbons to the top and voila! A miniature portable indoor Maypole!

On the web, I found a suggestion of using a cardboard tube from wrapping paper and inserting it into the umbrella hole of a picnic table. Mrs. Sharp suggests making a portable Maypole by purchasing a large wooden dowel (two to three inches in diameter and at least three feet long), stapling long ribbon streamers to the top and hiding the staples with glued on bows and silk flowers. One person stands holding this pole aloft, while the others dance around it.

The usual length of the ribbon is one-and-a-half times the length of the pole and you must have multiples of four (that is 8, 12, 16, 20, etc.) for the weaving effect to work.

One song that is often recommended for Maypole dancing is Country Gardens. Any sort of country/contra music piece, especially one that can be repeated until the dancing is done, will work. I also think the chant about “Go in and out the windows” would help dancers dancing a Grand Chain. You will find suggestions for patterns to dance and songs to sing in my May Day e-book

References:

Breatnach, Sarah Ban, Mrs Sharp’s Traditions, Scribner 2001

More Resources:

Check out the antique May Day postcards posted by Barbara Marlow Irwin at this web site.

Martha Stewart has a wonderful series of articles about May Day celebrations at her web site, including instructions on making a Maypole (far more sophisticated than those described above), making the cones in which to put the flowers you hang on doorknobs, and three different kinds of Maypole dances.

After my mother died, I inherited her cedar chest which was full of things from family members deemed important enough to save and pass on. I’m continually fascinated by the odds and ends of what has remained. So much of it is such a mystery, and is left to my imagination. As I go deeper, I pull out an odd assortment of random possessions, such as an ancient cardboard assortment of black snaps for making clothing, the much used Ouija Board and a small booklet called: Text Book of Osteopathy from the Standpoint of Mechano-Therapy, copyright 1910.

One of the most precious findings: a string of painted eggshells– still intact and whole. The eggs have delicately painted flowers on them and there is a ribbon that connects them. One egg has Easter 1906 painted on it, although Easter is misspelled. Another egg has the name of Robert on it.

As a child, I remember being fascinated by these magical treasures and asking my mother for their story. She didn’t know the mystery, so we would just put them back into her grandfather’s trunk that lived in our dirt cellar.

These fragments of family myth and mystery, have inspired me once again to pick up my camera and other art supplies, in a way that I haven’t done in many years. Art is my personal way of exploring the creative mystery of living.

Decorating eggs is one of my favorite spring time rituals. Every year around this time, I set out the pots of dye and the cartons of eggs, the tools and the candles and the beeswax I need to make pysanky. And for the few weeks before Easter, I spend a few hours every night or so, inscribing patterns on eggs. I can get lost for hours, totally absorbed in this process.

The art of decorating eggs may be the oldest art form. A recent find in South Africa of colored and etched ostrich shells dating back 60,000 years has scientists speculating on their meaning. Having made pysanky for years, I recognize them as ritual eggs, and the designs chosen as those that are easiest for beginning egg artists to create.

These eggs are magic talismans.

Eggs are symbols of spring, found in cultures and ritual meals all over the world. Some of the most beautiful decorated eggs come from the Ukraine where they are called Pysanky. Pysanky feature elaborate designs made with beeswax resist and are always raw. These eggs are magic talismans. The designs on the sides are messages (pysanky comes from a root word meaning “to write”) invoking fertility, long life, luck, protection and hope. Eggs with wheat and fruit designs might be buried in the fields to encourage the crops. Eggs with blue and green meander designs were kept in homes and carried around a fire to contain it.

I learned how to make pysanky from a book called Ukrainian Easter Eggs written by Anne Kmit, the Luciow sisters and Luba Perchyshyn. They have written many books on this topic but also sell tools and provide instructions on their web site: Ukrainian Gift Shop. Pysanky were always made by groups of women working together, late at night, during the week before Easter. The children were in bed; the men were not invited; the eggs were always fertile eggs. The women asked for specific blessings for each egg they made and sang traditional songs as they worked.

The eggs were distributed in a ritual manner. One or two eggs were given to the priest. Eggs were placed on the graves of family members. Eggs were given to all the children and godchildren. Unmarried girls exchanged eggs with the eligible young men in the community. A few eggs were placed in coffins to be ready in case someone died. Several were kept in the home to protect from fire and storms. Two or three were placed in the trough or the stables so the animals would have many young. One egg was placed under each beehive and one was saved for each grazing animal to be taken out to the fields with the shepherds in the spring. An egg with wheat symbols was placed at the start of the first furrow plowed and another at the end of the last. A bride would take an egg to her marriage ceremony in her skirt and on returning home, drop it saying. “Let me bear the child as easily as the egg falls.” If that didn’t work, the husband might receive an egg with a rooster on it or an oak leaf.

Every aspect of making the egg was important from the colors chosen to the designs. The most ancient and widely used symbol was the sun. Certain eggs, covered with symbols of water, flowers, growing plants and little wings, were used to “call spring.” Other eggs, called “noise insect eggs” depicted birds singing, crickets and the chirping noise of the forest to invoke the sounds of spring.

Here’s a list of some symbols.

Star: Success

Birds: Spring, good harvest & pushing away evil

Hearts: Love

Fruits, vegetables, wheat: Good harvest

Flowers: Beauty and children

Spiders: Healing powers and good luck

Animals, especially deer: Prosperity and wealth

Ladders (given to older people): Moving to a new level of existence

40 triangles (a traditional pattern): Wishes for the many facets of family life

Circle: Protection

Thirteen years ago I finally purchased the appropriate tool for making Ukrainian eggs, a kistka (I got mine in the art department of my local university bookstore). Ever since then, I’ve been hosting egg-decorating parties for me and my women friends. Each woman brings some eggs (either raw or hard-boiled). Meanwhile I set up several tables with kistkas, blocks of beeswax, a candle for each woman and some way of holding the egg steady (paper towels are the simplest—we also use the little plastic tables that come with your delivered pizza). The same stores that sell kistkas and special beeswax (dyed a darker color so it’s easier to see) also sell lathes on which you can turn your eggs so you can achieve perfectly even lines. We’ve never used one of these. The same stores also sell electric kistkas but I’ve scorned these as too modern. I like the simple ancient process.

I love the delicacy of the designs, the smell of the wax and the flickering light of the candle, which combine to create a trance-like state.

However, I do buy the packets of Ukrainian dyes—most of which are highly toxic—because they produce brilliant colors—turquoise, black and maroon, among others–you can’t find in ordinary Easter egg dyes. These are made with boiling water so mix them ahead of time so they can cool. I also use the regular Easter egg dyes you buy in kits at the store, particularly because I like the little wire dippers that come in these kits, handy for putting eggs in and out of the jars (I use wide-mouthed canning jars). We also use spoons for this task. I leave my dyes out, often for two or three weeks, so I can continue working on eggs. I love the way they look: the gleaming jars and the brilliant colors.

To make the design, you put a little bit of beeswax in the funnel of the kistka, then melt it over a candle flame and draw on the eggshell with the molten beeswax. Begin with a white egg and put wax on all the areas you want to stay white, then dye the egg yellow, and cover all the areas with wax which you want to remain yellow, and so forth through orange, red and a dark color (brown, black or purple). When the egg is done, place it in a low-temperature oven for a few minutes to melt the wax, which is then rubbed off to reveal the intricate designs and glowing colors of your egg. I love the delicacy of the designs, the smell of the wax and the flickering light of the candle, which combine to create a trance-like state.

If you don’t have a kistka, you can decorate eggs using a pin. Simply dip it into melted wax and drag it across the surface of the egg. It will leave a little comet-like trail. When done in concentric circles, you will have created sunbursts. The eggs, even though they are not cooked, can be kept for many years if they are stored so the air can move around them freely. I store mine in egg cartons in the basement but I have had an occasional egg go bad. Last year, I put varnish on all the eggs, hoping this would help preserve them. It’s a messy process (since there’s no way to hold an egg without getting varnish all over your own fingers) but it seems to have helped and it certainly brought out their colors. You can also blow the inside out of the eggs after they’ve been painted.

For more information on making Ukrainian eggs, you might enjoy this website created by Artist Ann Morash. For inspiration, or just amazement, check out the stunning examples of pysanky from Kolomiya Museum of Hutsul Folk Art. This web site featuring the work of Sofia Zielyk shows the way an artist might interpret this traditional craft. And then there’s Martha Stewart. She features 56 different ways to decorate eggs on her web site including marbled eggs, glittered eggs (very classy), gilded eggs, eggs dyed with natural materials, silk-dyed eggs, lace eggs, stenciled eggs and many more.

As I write this page, I am swimming in the sweet, spicy scent of the ruffled pink rose sitting in a vase of water on my desk.. Having recently been introduced to the serious art of wine tasting, I am educating my scent palate to register smells like tar and tobacco in wines. And I find the same acuity extends to flowers. Roses no longer just smell like roses; some are black cherry and others have the spiciness of carnations. This pink rose, however, is all rose: but on the peppery edge of rose.

The name rose simply means rose, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, although other sources derive it from Rhodes (where, apparently, roses grew) or from a Greek root meaning “red.” The word for Rose in Avestan, the language of Zoroaster, is vareda and in Armenian it is vard; and we see this root in the name of the midsummer festival Vartavar, the Flaming of the Rose. The Persian word for rose is gul, which also means flower, and is close to ghul, the word for spirit. Rose water is called gulab, as is a beverage made from water and honey or syrup, from which (via Arabia julab) we get the julep in mint juleps.

I have found more confusion in flower lore than anywhere else in my research. Of course, part of the problem with flowers is that it’s often hard to tell which plant is referred to by which name. But that seems hardly likely for roses. Still of the twelve books about flowers on my desk, every one tells a different (unattributed) story about the early references to roses.

What is clear is that the rose was cultivated by the Greeks. One source says Venus pricked herself on a thorn of a white rose and stained it red. Or that Cupid spilled red wine on it. But I can’t find these stories in my usual source for Greek mythology, Robert Graves.

The Romans adored roses and used them liberally in festivities, so liberally it is said that at one party, the guests were actually smothered by rose petals falling from the ceiling. This is not the origin of the term sub rosa. That comes from the Roman practice of hanging a rose over a conference table, which was supposed to indicate that everything spoken there would be held in confidence. For many centuries, roses were carved or painted on the ceilings of dining chambers to indicate that the diners could talk freely.

Horace in the Odes said: “Nor let roses be wanting to our feast.” The Sybarites slept on mattresses stuffed with rose petals. The rose garden of King Midas was one of the wonders of the ancient world. Apuleius in Metamorphoses, gives them as decoration to Venus, who after an evening of revelry is described “Heavy with wine and all her body bound about with flashing roses.” Many legends aassociate the rose with Venus. It is her flower, par excellence.

For a while, because of the bad reputation roses had acquired under the Romans, Christians did not allow the rose in church, but eventually it was adopted into Christian iconography. Christ is shown crowned with rose thorns and Judas supposedly hanged himself from a rose tree. Mary is addressed with various rose titles, including Rose of Sharon, the Rose-bush, the Rose-garland, the Rose-garden, Wreath of Roses, Mystic Rose and Queen of the Most Holy Rose-garden.

To the Arabs, roses signify masculine beauty. It is said that the white rose sprang from the sweat of Mohammed on his journey to heaven.

In Germany, the rose is under the protection of the dwarfs or fairies and you must ask their permission before picking one, this is the mistake Beauty’s father made when plucking the rose from the Beast’s garden. In a reversal on this motif, other legends tell of people who were enchanted and turned into animals who regained their human form by eating a rose, for instance, Apuleius in the Golden Ass and St. Denis, the patron of France.

For many centuries in Greece, Rome and China, the rose was a funeral flower. In Switzerland, the cemetery is sometimes called the Rosengarten. In England it is customary to plant a rosebush on the grave of a lover who dies before the marriage, thus combining the themes of love and death. Seeing the petals of a rose fall is a sign of death for the Germans although it can be counteracted by burning some of the petals.

An Indian legend tells about a quarrel between Vishnu and Brhama about the most beautiful flower. Brahma insisted upon the lotus (the flower of July) until Vishnu showed him a rose.

A Brief History of Roses

Rosa canina

Roses have been cultivated in Greece and China for over 3,000 years. The earliest rose is the dog rose (Rosa canina). Fossils of this species from 35 million years ago were found in Montana. I just smelt a dog rose as I strolled home in the midsummer sunshine and it has the most intense fragrance of any rose.

Rosa Gallica by Pieree Joseph Redoute

The next oldest rose is the rosa gallica (gallica officinalis), a symbol of the sun in the 12th century BCE. It has a rich cherry color and flowers the size of a field poppy. This was the rose used as a symbol of Lancaster during the War of the Roses. A striped Rosa Gallica called Rosa Mundi commemorates Henry II’s mistress, Rosamund, hidden by him at Woodstock near Oxford, and murdered by jealous Queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine. It is also known as the apothecary rose because it was used by herbal healers.

The next distinct rose type comes from 1000 BCE and grew at the Temple of Aphrodite at Samos. It has loose petals, voluptuous and scented, and was known as the damask rose in England, supposedly because it came from Damascus. Because of its wonderful scent, it was used primarily used to make rose water.

Rosa damascena by Pierre Joseph Redoute

Another early rose is the sweet briar or eglantine (rosa rubiginosa), which is mentioned by Chaucer and also appears in The Song of Roland:

On white carpets those knights have sat them down,
At the game-boards to pass an idle hour—
Checkers the old, for wisdom most renowned,
While fence the young and lusty bachelors
Beneath a pine in eglantine embowered.

translated by CS Moncrieff

I believe this is the rose in the rose hedge observed by Richard Jefferies, a naturalist, near a farm at Wick in Wiltshire:

Some of [the] briars stretch forth into the meadow, and then, bent down by their own weight, form an arch crowned with flowers. There is an old superstition about these arches of briar hung out along the hedge-row: magical cures of whooping-cough and some other disease of childhood can, it is believed, be effected by passing the child at sunrise under the briar facing the rising sun.

Chinese roses first arrived in Europe near the end of the 18th century. These were the tea-roses, possibly so-called because they were imported along with tea. In China they were often named for poetic concepts, like “Clear Shining after Rain,” while in France, new varieities were usually named for men, wives and mistresses. When crossed with hybrid perpetuals, these roses produced most modern roses.

The rose is a member of the Rosacae which also includes strawberries and raspberries, apples and almonds, plums and apricots.

Rose Holidays

There are many holidays associated with roses, many of them in June. And in fact, June is national Rose Month (so declared in America in 1969).

Rose Monday is celebrated in Germany on the Monday before Lent begins, with parades, masked balls, parties, satirical speeches and other Carnival events.

Several saints with feast days in June are associated with roses. The yellow rose is the symbol of St. Nicomede whose feast day is June 1st. And the three-leaved rose is associated with St. Boniface on June 5. And on St. Barnaby’s day, June 11, it was customary in Great Britain to decorate churches and houses and even clergymen (who wore chaplets of roses while officiating)with Barnaby garlands of roses and sweet woodruff. Red roses are associated with St. George, whose feast day is April 23.

Ginzburg citing studies by Nilsson and Ranke says that the Christian festival of Pentecost derives from the Rosalia (a Roman ceremony honoring the dead, celebrated on May 10 and May 31). According to posts at several web sites that study ancient Roman religion, the standards of military units were brought out on these days and decorated with a garland of roses, presumably to honor soldiers from the unit who had died in combat.

The day before Pentecost is a day when many Christians visit and decorate the graves of their loved ones (and it may be the precursor of Memorial Day). And on Pentecost in Messina, according to Urlin, great quantities of roses wee dripped from the ceiling of the church during the singing of the famous Come Holy Spirit.

The Armenians have a festival called Vartavar or Flaming of the Rose. Originally a Midsummer festival, it is now celebrated at the same time as the Transfiguration, 98 days after Easter, but still involves the pagan customs inherited from the older holiday: decorating churches with roses, spraying each other with water and releasing doves.

Rose Water

The 16th century English herbalist, Gerard, recommended rose water for “the strengthening of the heart, and refreshing of the spirits and likewise for all things that require a gentle cooling. The same being put in junketting dishes, cakes, sauces and many other pleasant things, giveth a fine and delectable taste.”

Gather about a pound of fresh rose petals [be sure they have not been sprayed] from fragrant roses. Fill an aluminum tea kettle half full of water, strew rose petals thickly over the surface. Close the kettle and set over a low heat. Attach a clean rubber hose to the spout of the kettle and place the other end in a glass jar on the floor. Arrange the rubber hose so part of it is submerged in a pan of cold water. The essence of the rose petals will be extracted by the heat and carried off with the steam generated by the water. The vapors, on passing through that part of the rubber hose which is under water, are condensed and run into the glass jar in the form of rose water. Be certain the temperature is low, the petals do not clog the spout and that there is no obstruction in the tub, as the pressure of the steam may force the lid from the kettle and scatter petals over the walls and ceiling of the kitchen. Aside from this danger, rose water is not really difficult to distill. The first attempt may take time and patience, but after that success is almost certain.

When using rose water in cooking, Gordon suggests adding it near the end as the flavor is delicate and easily lost during baking and boiling. Add rose water to cakes, to frosting, to cookies (especially those with a delicate flavor like shortbread or sugar cookies).

Arabs use rose water with honey and butter to glaze a roasting chicken. In Greece, it flavors candies and pastries. In Turkey, a bottle of rose water sits on the table and is sprinkled over food for flavor. This same sprinkler is called attardane in India.

Rose water has also been used for baptisms and to purify mosques and temples. The Romans used rose water in their fountains.

Eating & Drinking Roses

Why not design a rose meal? You could serve rose sandwiches (rose petals and cream cheese), scones with rose jam or rose butter and rose tea (made from adding a few dried petals to black tea when steeping in the pot). For dessert, baklava or rose-flavored shortbread cookies or a rose cake decorated with crystallized rose petals.

For beverages, serve rose punch or rose wine, and use roses for cups. Lucy Maria Boston gives parties where she asks each guest to choose a globular rose to drink from. “It is rather a dribbly business,” she writes, “the roses leak, but utterly delicious; also long drawn out, the process can’t be hurried.” Shekinah Mountainwater suggests sprinkling rose petals in a cup of red wine or rose water. As you sip from it, the petals will caress your lips and the scent your nose.

Rose Blossom Punch

This punch recipe, which I believe comes from the Evelyn and Crabtree cookbook, features roses both visually (frozen in a block of ice) and with the flavor of rosewater.

The day before you plan to serve the punch, thoroughly rinse a cardboard milk or juice carton. Cut off the top and trim the sides to 7 inches. Put the roses in the carton and fill it to within one inch of the top with boiled and cooled water. Freeze overnight or until solid.

To make the punch:

Combine wine, kirsch and rosewater in a punch bowl. Remove the cardboard from the rose-studded ice cube and place in the bowl. Float small rose petals and leaves on top. Serve in long-stemmed wineglasses.

Rose Wine

The Gulistan, a collection of Persian wisdom, mentions a rose wine so strong that “a glass could make the sternest monarch merciful or make the sickliest mortal slumber amid his pains.” The Siberians make a bright red sparkling wine from the leaves of the wild rose, called Shimpovka.

Add 2 quarts of water to the rose petals and boil for 20 minutes. Cool. Add lemons and oranges sliced very thin, the sugar and yeast dissolved in warm water. Add 2 additional quarts of boiled water. Let stand 8 to 10 days, stirring 2 or 3 times daily. Drain and put in a jug, lightly corked, until through working. Strain and pour into sterilized bottles and cork.

Rose Petal Jam

Place the red rose petals in a large jar in alternating layers of petals and sugar until all the petals are used. Press and pack tight. Using a different jar, repeat this process with the white rose petals. Set aside the remaining sugar for later use. Pour 3/4 cup hot water into each jar and cover each with a piece of damp cloth. Let stand for 3 days.

Strain the juice from the jar of white petals; discard the petals. Take the remaining sugar and add enough water to dissolve it; boil in an enamel saucepan to make a heavy syrup. Add the juice and petals from the red-petal jar and the juice of the white-petal jar. Bring to a boil and simmer until the mixture reaches the consistency of honey. Add the lemon juice and stir. Cool the jam and ladle into screw-top jars.

Every country has a slightly different way of preparing this treat. In Greece, 1 pound of rose petals are kneaded with 1 pound of sugar. This mixture is left to stand for a day. The following day, it is put into a pot, along with 3 pounds sugar, the juice of 1/2 a lemon and 3 glasses of water and boiled until it becomes a thick syrup.

Rose Conserve

There is also a way of making an uncooked rose petal preserve or conserve which seems very appealing to me. In Persia it is called Gulkanda, from Gul (for Rose) and Kanda (the same word which gives us candy). In India, a similar concoction is called Goolakund.

1 pound rose petals
3 pounds sugar3 pounds sugar

Crush the rose petals. Place a layer of sugar in a large jar and alternate with the crush petals until you’ve used all the sugar. Close the jar tightly and leave in the hot sunshine several days until all the sugar is melted. Serve as a jam.

Since it may be hard to obtain a pound of rose petals, you can reduce the quantities and use a cup instead. You can also use brown sugar instead of white. This was called Rose Tobacco in Colonial days.

Old Rose Recipes

Rose Butter

I love old recipes, both for the language and the technique. This one is over a hundred years old.

Wash rose petals and put them in a stone jar, sprinkling them with fine salt. Next day gather some more and repeat until the jar is almost filled. Keep the jar well covered at all times with a lid and also wrapped in a coarse cloth. When you plan to make rice pudding or cake, weight the butter you intend using and put it in the jar on top of the rose petals overnight. By the time you take it out, it will have absorbed a very fine rose flavor, superior to that of rose water. Rose petals may be kept in this way for a year, until they bloom again.

Rose Conserve

This recipe is even older. It comes from the 16th century English herbalist, Gerard.

Take Roses at your plesure, put them to boyle in faire water, having regard to the quantity; for if you have many Roses you may take more water; if fewere, the lesse water will serve: the which you shall boyle at the least three or foure houres, even as you would boile a piece of meate, untill in the eating they be very tender, at which time the Roses will lose their colour, that you would thinke your labour lost, and the thing spoiled. But proceed, for though the Roses have lost their colour, the water hath gotten the tincture thereof; then shall you adde unto one pound of Roses, foure pound of fine sugar in pure pouder, and so according to the rest of the Roses. Thus shall you let them boyule gently after the sugar is put therto, continually stirring it with a wooden Spatula untill it be raw conserve, as well for the vertues and goodnesse in taste, as also for the beautifull colour.

Rose Treats

Baklava

Lay a paper-thin sheet of phyllo dough on a buttered cake or pie tin and spread with melted butter, using a brush. Add five or six additional sheets, buttering each, then spread a mixture of the sugar, mace and nuts on top. Add 5 or 6 more layers and repeat. Do this until the baklava is about 2 inches high. With a sharp knife, cut crisscross slits on the top, about 1-1/2 inches apart. Bake in a 250 oven for about 1 hour. After you have taken it out of the oven, sprinkle it with rose water or Baklava Rose Syrup. Serve it with black coffee.

Baklava Rose Syrup

2 cups water
2 cups sugar
juice & rind of 1/2 orange
1 T rose water

Mix together the water, sugar, orange juice and rind. Boil for 3 minutes, then add the rose water.

Candied Rose Petals

2 cups fragrant rose petals
1/2 pound sugar
1 cup powdered sugar

Boil the sugar in 2 cups of water until the syrup spins a thread. Set on ice to cool. When the syrup starts to crystallize, dip the petals in with wire tongs or tweezers, a few at a time. Then take out and spread on waxed paper. When they begin to dry, dust with powdered sugar on one side and then on the other. Store in airtight containers.

Crystallized Rose Petals

Beat the white of one egg to a foam. Dip a small pastry brush (or use your fingers) in egg white and brush well over the sides of the rose petals. Be certain that no surplus egg white remains on the petal but that both sides are moist. Shake granulated sugar on both sides and place on a tray to dry in the refrigerator.

Rose Sugar

Bury a small fragrant rose in a screw-top glass jar full of sugar. Set on a windowsill that gets sun for several weeks. The scent of the rose will permeate the sugar.

Rose Fragrances

A story is told that the secret for making attar of roses was discovered by a princess at her wedding feast when she noticed that the rose petals floating in the water were leaving behind an oily residue as the sun made the water evaporate. This oily deposit was skimmed from the surface to make rose oil. Sixty thousand roses were required to make a single ounce of oil.

Tincture of Roses

Place the petals of fragrant roses, without pressing them, in a bottle. Pour some good spirits of wine over them. Then close the bottle and let it stand until required for use. It will keep for years and smells similar to attar of roses, which is much more expensive and difficult to make.

Attar of Roses

Fill a large glazed earthen jar with rose leaves, carefully separated from the cups; pour upon them spring water, just sufficient to cover them, and set the jar with its contents in the sun for two or three days, taking it under cover at night. At the end of the third or fourth day, small particles of yellow oil will be seen floating on the surface of the water. In the course of a week, these will have increased to a thin scum. The scum is attar of roses. Take it up with a little cotton tied at the end of a stick (sounds like a Q-tip to me) and squeeze it into a vial.

Rose Toilet Water

Press rose petals from the most naturally fragrant roses into a bottle. Add glycerin and keep tightly corked for four weeks. Strain or use directly from the bottle. A few drops added to rainwater make a fragrant rinse.

Rose Crafts

Roses and Rosaries

Many of you have probably heard, as I have, that rosaries were originally made from rose beads. But that is actually a fanciful derivation. The original rosaries were probably knotted ropes, and for gentlewomen, lovely strings of precious stones, much like the lovely Goddess rosaries Lunaea Weatherstone makes and sells.

But you can make beads from roses and one of my Living in Season friends, Eyln MacInnis, has created a Kindle book and a website devoted to explaining this craft. The rose bead necklace in the photo to the right is one she made.

I always enjoy making Christmas presents but don’t always allow myself enough time to enjoy the process. This year I decided to make bath bombs (inspired by my daughter who is making shower melts). I have to say it’s such a wonderful winter holiday activity. Keeps me entertained for hours and my apartment smells great.

After perusing any number of recipes I found on Pinterest, I came up with one I really like. The ingredients for ONE bath bomb are listed as:

I had all of those things already. Citric acid is the trickiest one to find. You might find it at your grocery store, at a natural foods store or a crafts store.
I simply multiplied those by 4 to make four bath bombs at a time. Whisk the dry ingredients together thoroughly.

Again multiply all of these by 4 or whatever number of bath bombs you want to make. Combine all the liquids and stir vigorously to combine.

I used rose water for the rose-scented bath bombs and orange blossom water in the one scented with lime essential oil. I used lavender oil for the lavender one and that was probably too much oil. The woman whose recipe I was copying made green tea and cinnamon bath bombs with liquid from strong batches of tea. Be careful with essential oil. You don’t want to add too much because of possible skin irritation and certain oils (like cinnamon oil) should never be applied to the skin.

The trickiest part is combining the wet with the dry ingredients. Whisk the wet ingredients into the dry mixture a few drops at a time (if you put too much liquid in, you’ll start the chemical reaction and end up with a fizzing bath bomb in your mixing bowl).

Several recipes online recommend using bath bomb molds but I didn’t have any so I adapted the technique recommended in one recipe by putting them into cupcake wrappers in a muffin tin. I notice that many people just use the muffin tin without the cupcake wrappers but I liked the corrugated edges. The trick here is to go around the edges with a fork to tamp down the edges, and then go over the bulk of the bath bomb with a spoon to tamp them down. They need to be compressed as they dry. I let them dry for one day, then removed them from the wrappers.

I’m still trying to come up with the best way to package them. Thought about putting them in mason jars but I’m afraid the different scents would bleed into each other. Putting them into clean cupcake wrappers might also be fun but it would be best to combine that with a cellophane bag so the scent doesn’t dissipate.

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